Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
May 24, 2021 7 tweets 4 min read Read on X
The @DHSOIG concluded that ICE and DHS officials repeatedly lied to Congress and the public about whether parents had voluntarily chosen to leave their children behind, insisting that every deportation was thoroughly documented.

In reality, ICE had no consistent system at all.
This is the second time since October that @DHSOIG concluded that Kirstjen Nielsen misled the public.

In October, OIG disclosed that she signed a memo limiting asylum capacity at ports of entry then stood at the White House podium and denied that asylum seekers were turned away.
OIG finds that ICE had no standard policy for deporting parents when Zero Tolerance began, so one ICE field office "typically removed parents without asking if they wanted to be joined by their children."

ICE and DHS leadership told Congress this never happened. That was wrong. The timing of the parents’ removal played a major part in
The @DHSOIG finds that "at least 348 separated parents" were deported without being asked if they wanted to reunify with their child (to be precise, "ICE has no records" for the 348), and some parents who said they wanted to reunify were deported anyway.

Crimes against humanity.
Here @DHSOIG provides three cases of fathers who affirmatively told @ICEgov they wanted to reunify with their children before being deported.

ICE documented each request and then deported the parents anyway—and Kirstjen Nielsen later claimed to Congress it could never happen.
On top of the 348 parents deported with no evidence of being asked about reunification, OIG identified an additional 149 parents who supposedly signed documents accepting deportation without reunification—but the documentation is so sketchy OIG implies it's not trustworthy.
After you've gotten to the bottom of this thread, now read the full list of statements that the @DHSOIG notes Trump's DHS officials made to the public and under oath to Congress.

Nielsen and Acting ICE Director Albence's claims about ICE's reunification process were fictional.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

Jul 3
With this vote, Congress makes ICE the highest-funded federal law enforcement agency in history, with more money per year at its disposal over the next four years than the budgets of the FBI, DEA, ATF, US Marshals, and Bureau of Prisons combined.
Here is the funding for immigration enforcement in the bill, to be spent through September 30, 2029.

- $74.9 billion for ICE detention and removal
- $65.6 billion for CBP infrastructure, hiring, tech
- $10 billion DHS slush fund
- $3.5 billion for state enforcement

And more! Image
Read more about what's in the bill that just passed in our explainer. We estimate that ICE could increase detention capacity to at least 116,000 beds, including over 40,000 detention beds in tent camps — which we believe is a conservative estimate. americanimmigrationcouncil.org/fact-sheet/hou…
Read 6 tweets
Jul 1
Literal cages. Not even metaphorical ones. Literal ones.
For those curious, those white things hanging from the ceiling are ventilation and air conditioning (which is seemingly not turned on where the picture was taken). If you count from the foreground, you can see one actively in use 7 down; it's inflated. Air comes out of the holes.
Seen some questions about where bathrooms are. Hard to say.

When I visited a CBP facility in Tucson that was built off of a similar model, there was a modified port-a-potty in the back of each cell and more bathrooms/showers outside of the cells.
Read 35 tweets
Jun 28
If the bill passes, it could make ICE the nation’s largest jailer, with more funding for detention than the entire federal Bureau of Prisons. It would give ICE enough money to have more officers on board than the entire FBI.

This alone could transform American society forever.
If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029:

- $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion
- $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million
- $8 billion for hiring
- And more
Read more about what’s in the reconciliation bill here. Note that our analysis has not yet been fully updated with changes made in the Senate bill.

Should it pass the Senate, we’ll be updating this ASAP Monday. americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/…
Read 4 tweets
Jun 24
NEW: Erez Reuveni, the DOJ lawyer fired for his honesty in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case, tells Congress that Emil Bove suggested the DOJ respond to any court orders blocking the CECOT deportations with "fuck you."

He also says DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign lied to Judge Boasberg. Bove then made a remark concerning the possibility that a court order would enjoin those removals before they could be effectuated. Bove stated that DOJ would need to consider telling the courts "fuck you” and ignore any such court order. Mr. Reuveni perceived that others in the room looked stunned, and he observed awkward, nervous glances among people in the room. Silence overtook the room. Mr. Reuveni and others were quickly ushered out of the room. Notwithstanding Bove's directive, Mr. Reuveni left the meeting understanding that DOJ would tell DHS to follow all court orders.21 - Mr....
Reuveni accuses Drew Ensign, the DOJ lawyer appearing for the Trump admin in the Alien Enemies Act case, of lying to Judge Boasberg on March 15 when he said he didn't know planes were taking off.

He says Ensign was at a meeting the day before when the flight were planned! Image
Reuveni says that on March 15 he was emailing DHS updates telling them that Judge Boasberg was ordering DHS to halt the flights.

His supervisor, August Flentje, noted Bove's "fuck you" line and joked Reuveni might be fired for telling DHS not to violate the order. Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 23
DISASTROUS. This means they will send people to horrific situations with no due process — in direct violation of promises the Solicitor General made to the Court in previous cases.

This greenlights sending people to be enslaved in Libya or tortured in any random foreign country.
Today the GOP justices on the Supreme Court endorsed migrants being sold into slavery.

They'll claim otherwise, but that's the reality — today's decision permits Trump to send people from countries around the world to any global hellhole that accepts a U.S. financial incentive. Image
Sotomayor's dissent is scathing. She accuses her colleagues of a gross abuse of discretion, saying they "interven[ed] to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied."

She's right. The 6-justice majority is effectively endorsing contempt of court. Image
Read 14 tweets
Jun 13
This funding would make ICE the highest-funded law enforcement agency in the history of the United States, with greater detention capacity than the entire Federal Bureau of Prisons.

It would reshape society, making federal arrests a daily fact of life in every single community.
Personally I think we should not spend enough money to bring every American out of homelessness on rounding up large portions of America's farmworkers, roofers, drywall installers, masons, carpenters, cooks, janitors, and more, all to crash the economy.
Read 9 tweets

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